


None Like That

by Zelos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aromantic Lydia Martin, Aromantic Stiles Stilinski, Friendship, Minor Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 15:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: “We’re supposed to be, you know, the whole can’t breathe without you, walk through fire—you know what I’m talking about, right?”A short, terse car ride. Allison’s voice, frustrated and pleading:you’ve had boyfriends.Lydia faltered. It slipped out before she could stop it: “No.”Lydia and Stiles share a moment about performing to expectations.





	None Like That

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clotpolesonly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/gifts).



> Just for one second, please, try and remember -   
> Remember what?   
> Remember what it feels like. All of those times in school when you see him standing down the hall, and you cannot breathe until you're with him. Or those times in class when you - you can't stop looking at the clock because you know that he's standing right out there waiting for you. Don't you remember what that's like?   
> No.  
> What do you mean, "no"? You've had boyfriends.  
> None like that.

Lydia was a girl of many talents, most of them undiscovered or underappreciated. All right, so the genius part wasn’t a secret anymore. And yes, she was this close to being put on the sheriff’s payroll for her banshee abilities (Jordan was also gaining quite the unusual reputation since he was the one following her around calling the bodies in).

But Lydia’s most underappreciated, if not particularly unknown, talent was _shopping_. Any occasion, any budget, any reason: long before Peter’s bite, she had the preternatural ability to find the perfect top, dress, bikini, and anything in between, always fitting like it’d been tailored and at a killer deal besides.

Her dressing well wasn’t exactly a _secret_. It was just never a service she’d offered to anyone else. And no one besides Jackson appreciated it anyway (they did have _some_ good times together in between the mutual toxicity). So Lydia enjoyed it as a personal, private indulgence: living well was the best revenge. _Looking_ like revenge certainly didn’t hurt.

“What do you mean this thing cost $55?!”

The voice sounded too familiar. Lydia looked up from her latest store receipt and immediately spotted Stiles, red in the face and indignantly waving something at a harried associate five feet away.

“$55?! It’s a strip of leather! I could go into the woods and _skin_ a—”

Lydia took pity on the poor employee. “Stiles?”

Stiles froze mid-gesticulation. “Lydia?”

Lydia switched her shopping bags to her other hand and strode into the store, already regretting every step. “What are you doing?”

Stiles blinked. “Um, shop…ping.” He wilted a little from the sheer force of Lydia’s exasperation. Behind him, the employee shot Lydia a grateful look and scurried away.

“This isn’t a flea market,” Lydia reminded him with far more patience than Stiles deserved.

Stiles scrunched his nose. “People haggle for jewellery all the time.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “At a local jewellers, maybe. Starting prices $1200. Doesn’t work so well at a chain like Pandora.” She held a pointed pause. “Now, if you _were_ looking for wedding bands…”

Stiles’ blanching was worth her intervention. Well, almost.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. Who and what are you shopping for?”

Stiles sighed and dropped the bracelet; it clattered onto the counter beside the half-dozen other necklaces and baubles. “Malia. Her birthday is coming up.” He eyed Lydia’s bags. “You shopping for her too?”

“I’m done.”

“Lucky.”

It wasn’t luck, but Lydia generously let it slide. She glanced down at the bags Stiles had dropped onto the floor. They seemed…less gregarious, at least in size, than what Stiles had bought her for her own birthday. “Are those for Malia too?”

“I’ll return anything she doesn’t want.” Stiles ran a disgruntled hand through his hair, darted a look at Lydia, then just as quickly looked away.

“No credit card this time?”

“Dad was a little pissed at the fraud alerts.” Lydia laughed and Stiles grinned back, looking sheepish. “Help? I seriously don’t know what I’m doing. I have…a 3000 piece puzzle set, a watch…I tried to get a replica of her sister’s stuffed animal.” Stiles rubbed at his face. “That might get me slapped.”

She surveyed the bags with…well, she was aiming for pity but might’ve landed afar of disdain. “That’s…quite the assortment.”

“ _You_ got her clothes,” Stiles said ruefully. “Right?”

“Because it’s not socially acceptable for her to walk around naked.” Lydia tossed Stiles a backward glance. “But, if you can find her a nude beach somewhere…”

 “I thought girls like _things_. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

“Says who?”

Stiles huffed a put-upon sigh, like he was staring down the barrel of a mystery he had no hope of figuring out. “Says like, everyone! Anniversaries and birthdays and Valentine’s and all those other days, and you get them things because it makes them happy.” He was gesticulating wildly again. “We’re supposed to be, you know, the whole can’t breathe without you, walk through fire—you know what I’m talking about, right?”

A short, terse car ride. Allison’s voice, frustrated and pleading: _you_ _’ve had boyfriends._

Lydia faltered. It slipped out before she could stop it: “No.”

Dead silence, like the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. Stiles stared at her, expression slowly changing from puzzlement to incredulity to outright disbelief. Lydia glared back, chin raised, suddenly, wildly furious and resentful but damn if she’d take it back.

Then Stiles breathed, “Oh, thank god,” took a step—

—and slipped on one of his bags, falling backward into the glass display.

 

Twenty minutes and much disgruntlement later, Stiles was following Lydia around the mall, his bags in one hand and hers in the other. He kept darting glances at her.

Eventually sharklike curiosity won over sheepish discretion. “So, you and Jackson…”

“Are none of your business,” Lydia said archly, steel in her voice.

Stiles shut up. They continued walking in silence for a few more minutes when Stiles suddenly said, “me too.”

Lydia almost stopped dead. Almost.

“Malia is…great. She is.” Stiles seemed to be mostly talking to his shoes. “We have great—anyway, it’s good. I like her a lot. But that squishy feeling in your chest Scott keeps talking about, the walk six miles in the rain to make her smile…I just. I don’t know. I don’t…” he gestured helplessly, their shopping bags swinging in his hands. “I wish I could feel things like Scott.”

Lydia shot Stiles a sideways look that had as much exasperation as sympathy. She really wasn’t up to playing therapist, especially when it edged far too close to Jackson and her. “I thought we’re talking about Malia?”

Stiles got the hint. “But it _is_ her birthday and I do want to make her happy. You bought Jackson stuff, I know you did; half the school knew every time you got him anything and you were mad at the other half for not paying attention.”

Lydia had, yes. Jackson _needed_ …so much more than she could (and wanted to) give him. But, at the time, he (and she, let’s be honest) _wanted_ attention, validation, and _that_ she’d delivered in spades.

She didn’t get that squishy feeling in her chest any more than Stiles did, but Jackson and she had filled a need in each other when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Maybe that was less _love_ and more _desperate sort of peace_ ; she didn’t have the words back then to describe what they had. She still didn’t. She tried not to think about it too much. Their breakup had still been loss, had still _hurt_. He’d been important, like the key tucked into the drawer of her vanity.

None of this was anything she wanted to explain to Stiles. If she wanted a therapist, she could do miles better than Stiles. Lydia spun around, hands on hips, and stared Stiles down even though he was half a head taller. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

Stiles stared back as if she’d grown another head. “Ask…her?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “She spent eight years as a coyote, maybe she’d want something different than your usual mallrat airhead?”

Stiles gave her, and her shopping bags, a very pointed look. Lydia let out a very unladylike snort. _Touche._

“Word of advice—and I’m only going to say this once—” Lydia reached over and plucked her purchases from Stiles’ hand “—we’re not a hive mind. You want to know what she wants and thinks, ask. Who knows, maybe she cares about dick more than squishy feelings too. Or maybe she doesn’t care about either.” She took two steps, stopped, and looked back over her shoulder. “But I’d reconsider the stuffed animal. She really might slap you.”

She swanned away before the squawking started.


End file.
